


Counterparties: Vila

by Match (pachipachi)



Series: Counterparties [1]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Closet Sex, First Impressions, Imprisonment, M/M, POV First Person, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 05:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12248226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pachipachi/pseuds/Match
Summary: Counterparty, noun: the other person entering into a contract or transaction. In which Vila tells Soolin an old-days story, and tries to explain how and when his life became bound up with Blake’s.





	Counterparties: Vila

**Author's Note:**

> Work originally appeared in the digital zine [Rebels and Fools, Issue 1](https://rebelsandfools.tumblr.com/post/164487288938/rebels-and-fools-issue-1). There will eventually be a companion piece, where Soolin tells Vila a secret in return.
> 
> Cheers to ilsa-fireswan for early encouragement and aralias for the last-minute beta.

Are we swapping secrets then, Soolin? You show me yours, I'll show you mine? 

All right, I'll bite. I slept with Blake. It was just the once, and we were standing up at the time, but I think it counts, don't you?

Sometimes it's easy to be forward with people you know a little but not really at all. If he hadn't been a stranger I never would've dared. I did know his name, but Blake wasn’t Blake then.

No, it was even before that, on the prison transport. Once we were set up aboard Liberator and he'd put himself in charge, dallying with a subordinate would've been capital-A abuse of power. Course I wouldn't have seen it that way, but that was Blake.

A Federation penal colony was meant to be the last stop for troublesome folk who weren't interesting enough for public execution. Or in Blake's case, _too_ interesting. Everyone on that ship-- nearly everyone-- had been in and out of different kinds of lockup. How about you, or am I being too forward?

Right, sorry, I’ll get on with it. There's certain things you've got to just _know_ if you end up in a place like that, if you want to last more than a week anyway. Blake had never had to learn. It never stings any less, being treated the way they treat you. But if you can hold fast to a bit of yourself, or hold on to someone else, you can see clear to a place where you don't mind the hurt as much. The thing is you can't go on being growly and startled over every new bit of cruelty, not and stay sane.

You're right, actually. That's Avon to a T. But I never worried about him the way I did Blake. Well, later I did, but that's not part of the story.

You didn't have to know Blake to know he wasn't entirely himself. There were times you could tell he was putting up a front and times there was nobody behind his eyes at all. I didn’t exactly have a reason to care one way or the other, but the man was easy to like, at least when all of him was looking at you. I didn't mean anything in particular when I sat down next to him. To jolly him along, maybe, until the haze cleared. If I'd had a bit of food to offer, or booze, or tobacco, maybe everything would have been different. Maybe I wouldn't be here telling you this story. But all I had was kind words, and empty promises, and myself.

That's the joke, though. Don't you see it? Back then I thought then I might have to take him under my wing, but I'm still under his. And in a way, so are you.

I didn't try to make eye contact. He'd one arm splayed over the table, so I rested my hand on his and left it there. We were in public, after all. There's some worlds where it's still illegal. Anyway I hardly knew myself whether I was asking or offering or just starved for touch.

He turned his hand beneath mine so we clasped palm to palm. “So it's to be you,” he said. What's awful was he didn't sound surprised. “Vila,” he said, “what is it you want of me?”

He sounded absent but not unkind. I didn't have to see his face to know he'd have that empty flat gaze, like he was looking at an explosion through the wrong end of a telescope.

Of course I knew what he meant. Was I offering sex in exchange for protection, or demanding it as tribute, or extending a favor so's he'd owe me later? Or was I desperate to have it off with someone and guessing him the least likely to put up a fight? But there was the soft rolling way he said my name, and his fingertips brushing my palm-- I knew he didn't mean anything by it, but he couldn't have been more alluring if he'd been trying to seduce me. So I pretended to misunderstand.

"I want nothing you don't want,” I said, “and only what you _do_ want. Come with me, Blake, won't you?”

"Come where,” he said, but it wasn't really a question.

No, there wasn't really anywhere private. There never is. Only, on that ship, a sort of tall cupboard built alongside the bulkhead but not attached to it. We called it the closet, but it was barely that. The walls gapped above and below and if you bumped a shelf the whole thing wobbled.

Nothing interesting inside. Cleaning and sanitary supplies. A medical kit minus anything that could possibly harm self or others, so it amounted to a box of gauze. Probably the only reason they flung up a partition at all was because of the drain in the floor. Someone, somewhere along the line must have thought it unsightly.

I suppose I never thought of it that way, but you're right. Spending months on end with a lot of people you don't want to know or regret knowing in the first place, in two and a half rooms of awful furniture-- we had to carve out something for ourselves. Someplace we could at least pretend they weren't watching.

Did they care, hell. The guards didn't care what we did so long as we behaved ourselves.

If a person went into the closet, you wouldn't bother them because they didn't exist. And when they came out again, you didn't speak to them until they spoke to you. If two went in together, you might notice who they were, but anything that happened between them likewise didn't exist, so there was nothing to draw attention to.

It's almost funny: we were off in the loneliest part of the void, heading for a planet of frost and death, but all anyone wanted was a few minutes of being alone in the dark.

Well it may not seem important to you, but it _is_ important. I've lost it since, but for a time I knew every inch of those rooms as well as I've known anything in my life. That was our whole world, the guards said. It was no more than a standard bit of cruelty, but for Blake it was nearly true.

I didn't leave him alone for more than a moment. Couldn't give him any time to start worrying about my intentions. I closed my eyes before I slid the door open, and waited a moment after shutting it behind me to open them again. It wasn't fully dark, it never was, and I could just make out that he was standing with his arms like so, gripping the edge of a shelf. "Do you come here often?” he said.

I put a hand to his shoulder and the other to his waist, slowly so as not to startle him. “Isn't that meant to be my line?” I said.

No, it didn't sound like a joke to me either. But I had to pretend-- one of us had to and Blake wasn't up for it-- that it didn't mean anything. Just a bit of flirting, a few moments of pleasure in the dark, maybe we'd do it again and maybe we wouldn't. Even then I knew we were hip-deep in meanings and motives and reasons, no more than half of them Blake's.

"I'll rephrase,” he said, and drew my arm around him. “Are you in the habit of fucking strange men in mop closets?”

I felt his breath more than heard it, at the places where we pressed together. For a moment there were so many things tumbling all around us. What he wanted, and what he feared, and what I wanted, and what he thought I might do, and that he trusted me. Because he hadn't stirred. We were breathing together, still.

What's awful is I think Blake _did_ mean that as a joke.

I found one of his hands and stroked it. “I'm afraid my arse isn't on offer,” I said, “but you can put it between my thighs if you want to pretend I'm your girl, or I can suck you.”

And suddenly he'd thrown me around so my back was to the shelves, and I didn't have time to be afraid before he was kissing me.

"Why would I,” and his mouth was everywhere, one hand pinning me and the other rucking up my sleeve, “why would I want to pretend you were anyone else?”

Kissing's lovely when it's something you do together. Being kissed, though, by someone tall enough to bend you backwards-- it's practically intoxicating.

Well that might not be a novelty for you, but you could always try it the other way round. Find yourself a slip of a girl who'll let you throw her over the sofa. Anyway I would've liked to go on kissing Blake, but you had to be careful about time. I nudged him so he knew to make room, and then I went to my knees.

He was all right so long as we were touching, but when I let go he went all stoic and gripped the same shelf again. And then-- you're going to laugh-- I couldn't get his trousers open. I wasn't faking, I swear. There were all these fiddly hook-and-eye clasps that would've torn if I'd forced them, and also my hands might have been trembling a bit. So Blake had to help me.

Now, do you want the gory details? That’s half the point of fucking a legend, isn’t it, having something to make into a story afterwards. Yes. I thought you might.

He was barely hard when I first took him in my mouth. For a moment I was afraid they might've fixed his head so he couldn't do it anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel ashamed. Not about sex or anything else. I'd thought I could do something nice for Blake, no expectations, and there I was on my knees waiting for him to push me away. I thought if I spoke-- I don't know what I thought he'd do.

Luckily for everyone it was a temporary condition. I pulled out all my old tricks, and it didn't take long for him to perk up. As it were.

You can tell, sometimes, when a person is going to be loud in bed. If the closet hadn't been so flimsy I know Blake would have been. He'd rested his hands on my shoulders at first for balance, but after a moment he was holding on in earnest.

That was the only place we were touching. The only other place. Blake was kneading at my shoulders, I don't think he knew he was doing it. The pressure of his fingers and the shape of his hands on me changed every moment, with each little thing I did. It felt like every moan or thrust or cry that he couldn't give me.

I wouldn't have minded if he'd been rough with me. From the way he kissed I'd half-expected it. I don't like it that way myself, as a general rule. There's enough cruelty in the world without us bringing it into bed. But what I liked wasn't important.

I wanted Blake to be wanting _something_. It didn't have to be me, so long as he liked what I was doing to him. If he'd wanted to pull my hair or thrust halfway down my throat or call me names I would've let him. Soolin, you know I'm not the self-sacrificing type. I wouldn't have gone on if I weren't enjoying myself.

I knew he must be getting close when he touched my face. Just his fingertips against my cheek like a blind man's, feeling how the shape changed as I sucked. I took him as deep as I could, and breathed shallow, and let my hands to the rest. Meanwhile his other hand was bearing down on my shoulder. I had a crick in my neck, I was all off balance, I didn't know which side I wanted to lean into-- it felt wonderful. He might've had both hands on my prick from the way I responded, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

He didn't give me enough to tell if his hands were trembling, but he was everywhere it counted: in his prick and his thighs and low on his belly. There was the weight of him in my mouth, and his hands on me, and beneath the sickly closet smell there was something-- a sharp golden scent-- that was only Blake. I remember thinking that I wanted to lick him clean. Of prison, of Earth, of every awful thing they'd tried to put on him. It seems mad now, but I was pretty far gone.

I'd _been_ hard. I didn't touch myself because I needed both hands for Blake. I was asking a lot of him, I know that now.

Yes, to stand and take it. That's not nothing, for someone coming back from where Blake had been. Like a fool I thought it might do him good to let go of the busy part of his mind and just _feel_. I don't think I'll ever really understand how Blake managed to knit himself back together. But I know there was a mortal fear in him: that if he forgot himself, even for a moment, there'd be more of their conditioning waiting on the other side.

The one hand on my cheek brushed along my temple and away, and that was all the warning I got before he came.

Don't think I don't know what you're dying to ask. I swallowed, if you must know. Partly because of the mess, partly because I did want to make it good for him, right to the end. I didn't think Blake would want to kiss me after. But he knelt, and licked a bit of his spunk from my mouth, and kissed me back when I tried for it. He had an easier time with my trousers than I’d had with his. He took me in hand, and it was so much the sweeter for being unexpected. It didn’t take long. There was a bit of mess, mostly on my clothes, but the box of gauze finally came in handy.

There were voices close beyond the partition, and someone dragging chairs around. The whole rest of the world was creeping in again, just like the guards said.

We knelt together for a moment. Anyone else, I might have said something like _it’ll be all right_ , or _we’ll look out for each other_ , or _you’re safe with me_. But Blake wasn’t safe anywhere, and it wasn’t going to be all right. I held him and tried to make my arms say something good and comforting that wasn’t a lie. I don’t know if it worked. Anyway we didn’t speak, and then I left.

The next time I spoke to Blake was when I introduced him to Avon. And now it's your turn.


End file.
